“Of brutality and love: lover”

The first flake is always of ice

Then fire, then lithium, then water, then life

The submergence, the melting, the frostlike end

Then a face emerges from heartland’s doom

A spectre of something, a hint of everything

There is no other love than love itself

That is what you tell yourself

But you look for every shade and every rock draw

Under every pile of distant pain

And you are brutal with it

Aggressive, numbing your fists by pounding at hopeful castles

Till you arrive at the one that has side-fruit

And it is not enough

But the seconds are there

You swallow them up

Every one

Battered and bloody from internal injury

Smiling through heartache

The liar of the century

Sitting in pain

But dancing with Newfoundland energy

While the bergs merge

And inside, the longest winter

Until

Flashes of light across a common face

Reading yourself in her or him

(It is a common fate)

Finding you can be understood

And this does not stop the argument

But it makes it better

Sitting with you through rough trees and ascents

Falling behind over rent fees and attempts

Fighting and falling and still bloody fists

But four no longer two

A partner, a crime, an object, a crew

There are no sequels to a life of the heart

It is open or close

Come up or stay home

We are pilgrims in process

Sick beds and open heart transplants

Changing in the midst of the storm

Finding ourselves at the moment of our deaths

Joined to live and joined to die

In process

In process

In process

With an end

What we must never fear is the idea of regret

The things that have a taste of sting but not the sting itself

Loving you is my corporate stance

My billboard, my calling card, my purpose for today, my awkward dance

I like to think you are better than me

Then I am angry when you do not always bleed

But no one is better

No one is worse

We are just the same

After all these hard fought battles and schemes

A thousand more to go

It does not matter

Brutality is the language of earth

Love is the basis of heaven

We live in the in-between

We experience the leaning thing

I am always on a boat with you in my mind

Playing the music that is for you and is also mine

Not yesterday

Not still

Perhaps,

I love the rain

The most

When

It stops.